Black Orchid

By Ryan Irvine

Recently released mental patient John Doe cannot remember the first fifteen years of his life, his parents, his family, how he acquired his incredible quickness or his ability to kill. After a violent incident puts him into a catatonic stupor, John is awakened and finds himself in Fort Mckenzie, a drug-infused cesspit of humanity, high up in the wastelands of northern Alberta.

As he tries to scourge the madness from his bones, John enters into a waking nightmare of drugs, kidnapping and corruption, all the while gaining clues to his forgotten past, unraveling the secrets of Fort Mckenzie and its mysterious patriarch Don Swan, gaining the friendship of an Indian Shaman and taking the first steps on a path to divinity.

Dark, aggressive and unrelenting, Black Orchid is an imaginative spectacle, infusing take-no-prisoners storytelling, film noir surrealism, and graphic lyricism, pushing readers into the depths of one man’s insanity and pulling them, kicking and screaming, back out again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mirador Publishing
• Release date: Nov 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781909224667

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BLACK ORCHID

BY

RYAN IRVINE

facebook.com/blackorchidbook

First Published by Mirador Publishing at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 by Ryan Irvine

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All right reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission of the publishers or author. Excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

First edition: 2013

Any reference to real names and places are purely fictional and are constructs of the author. Any offence the references produce is unintentional and in no way reflect the reality of any locations involved.

A copy of this work is available though the British Library.

IBSN : 978-1-909224-66-7

Chapter 1

The world means nothing to me anymore.

I see but do I comprehend?

I have sunken back into a place beyond emotion, beyond judgement. That is where enlightenment truly resides, in a room void of judgement, not some shell shocked hippie dance, all of us prancing on our toes giving each other blessings and licking honey from the heavens. Without judgement, without emotion, without the ability to analyze right and wrong, good and evil, life just is.

Growing, breathing, contracting, evolving.

Here is where I sit, on a throne of silken threads dangling from the dark catacombs of my skull. A new psyche has risen, a new ego to watch over the shattered old one. I was a man, and now I am nothing, just a witness witnessing, no identity, no memories, no emotions, no judgement. No judgement.

I see but do I comprehend?

I do comprehend, but the bridge between the now and the past has been torched. I have lost all filters and I comprehend the world without sifting it through a colander of past experience. And the result? To sit and rot, to consume and grow? I don’t know. I’m not sure, I look behind me and see only static. Loud, frantic, encompassing, debilitating. A crackling hissing wall that has toppled and buried me. And beneath the rubble I can hear the outside world, the machinations of man, the structures of time and distance, but why join in? Here is my purgatory, I have been sentenced and here I must remain.

*

The male nurse in front of me is a giant blob. He has unkempt, wild blonde hair that hangs down almost to his chin, square silver glasses that make his right eye look much bigger than the left, a loose fitting pale blue uniform and an expression that would suit an ageing grandmother more than a thirty something man. His hands are monstrous, fingers as fat as my wrist, with palms so smooth and spongy they make my ass twitch when he touches me. His lips are red and supple and when he mouths his words it looks as if he is sucking on a lollipop.

Marcus

So his name tag reads. Marcus the Giant Blob.

Welcome, Mr. Doe. Marcus says politely, slipping his emollient fingers under my bicep.

Let me help you to your new home.

We are in a hallway, over-sanitized, over-saturated. The walls are neutral, the lights fluorescent and the floor hard, acid-stained concrete. My eyes hurt. Marcus is guiding me past the front desk which is a buzzing hive of flailing limbs, frenzied words and cartoonish faces. The nurses, nurses-helpers, doctors, gatekeepers.

And the waves are a crashing, they’re crashing, crashing.

Just beyond that is a common room wreathed in pleather couches and loveseats, infested with housecoat wearing loiterers. My eyes roam, looking for something or someone familiar, but I see only strangeness and strangers. A bearded man reading an upside down newspaper, a three hundred pound woman walking in circles stroking a plastic dandelion, poorly scrubbed urine stains on the achromatic area rug.

Where once there was nothing, only unity, an unbroken whole now there are many. A hundred little slivers, fissures in the shell over my eyes. The cloud of static that has been my home for so long has begun to settle and the world is coming back to me, piece by horrifying piece.

I look into the eyes of the living and see the accusations of the dead. I taste the breath leaving their lips, searing my nostrils, choking me with condemnation.

I am hell, I am hell, I am hell.

The smell of the hospital, bleach, unwashed bodies. The sound of my footsteps and distant lunatic whispers. The taste of my own dry, bacteria doused tongue. The feeling of the Giant’s fingers and my own emaciated body.

Where am I? What the hell is happening???

The questions start to push their angry little heads through the fractures, demanding some god damn answers.

How did I get here? Why am I here??

They force their way into the antechamber of my soul, and there they die.

Cushhhhhhhh...

The thunder approaches and snuffs them out; it is over before it has begun. I cannot have any inquisitors in my purgatory. The past and the secrets there within, this identity, my memories, they must remain hidden. Some things are buried for a reason. But this automaton creature has learned a lesson.

The gates stay closed from now on.

I shut back down and let the giant lead me. The hallway is an endless chamber of placidity. We reach a room. A carbon copy of the dozen others we just passed but lacking that human touch. It’s missing the bizarre little accessories people accumulate, even in a place like this. The walls are bare, the bed made, the curtains are tied back like a little girl’s hair.

Here we are. Marcus announces; his voice a syrupy confection.

I move like a zombie. Sit down on the flabby mattress. A clock beside the window counts down the seconds.

Now, Mr. Doe...

Words begin to pour out of Marcus the Giant Nurse’s mouth, but I cannot hear him, I am somewhere far away.

The static has risen.

Chapter 2

Early morning in Fort Mckenzie and the town looks ashamed. The old brick buildings cower beneath the inquisitive eye of the sun like a brigade of horny old men caught leaving the dildo shop. The street signs and lights waver back and forth sloppily as if not fully recovered from the past night’s debauchery and the sidewalks sag in embarrassment. Cars and their masters move in slow-motion, the air has a stale bitter taste. The few people walking around at this time of day take tentative, skittish steps as if their secrets might fall down their pant legs at any time, for the whole world to see.

There is only one person, or should I say one boy who seems unaffected. He is sitting on the curb beside me fully captivated by the antiquated comic book in his lap. I am a shitty guesser of age, but I would say he is somewhere between seven and eight. Short brown hair, freckles, pale skin.

Cuz’ his Dad’s a cop. He continues saying. He’s an RCMP, he doesn’t like dropping me off here, but he does it anyways. That’s because he doesn’t really like me, I know it, he would never say that, but I know it. And now I am just waiting.

Waiting, we’re all just waiting.

I am waiting for Shane, the Youngblood. He slept at his Auntie’s house last night. We are to meet here and then go into the Swancor office behind me and secure our financial futures. The office is open, but I prefer to sit outside and get a feel for this place.

Fort Mckenzie, my new home.

Hell on earth some people call it. A burgeoning abscess of humanity built on the hides of dead animals and perpetuated by the oceans of black viscous fluid being pumped in from the Athabasca oilsands. A magnet for the piteous, the innocent, the arrogant, the absurd, the asinine, the good, the bad, the ugly. All of us have congregated here, in this flat-footed place, to find our fortunes. Be it turning globs of tar-like bitumen into gold, humbly pumping gas or turning tricks in mouldy motel rooms. We are here, and we want our treasure.

But some of us either don’t make it into the game or maybe can’t handle the weight of a sack full of money on our backs. And the only path left is the one of least resistance, downwards.

I can see such a player now, ambling across the street like an angry marionette. His face is a manic distortion, ghoulish skin crumpled and weathered, eyes searching for a centre that no longer exists.

Drugs. The Boy says, looking up from his comic. He’s on drugs.

I make a non-committal grunt. The tweaker hears us and turns. I look into his eyes and see only the faded memory of a human soul.

My friend Kade says that all the druggies live in the old hotel on Bremley Street. He says they stay up all night doing drugs and fighting each other like in Fight Club. And that the ones who lose, get taken out to the oilsands and buried, and no one ever finds them.

I give the kid an appraising look. His face is emotionless as he speaks, trance-like.

And he says they get these scabs from doing all their drugs because they think there is bugs on them, and they have to scratch them off, but there is no bugs, it’s just in their imagination.

Meth scabs. I’ve heard of such things, tweakers get sores from meth coming out of their skin or from scratching hallucinations. I’ve even heard of some meth heads purposely getting them by holding their exhalations in their hands, so the chemicals crystallize faster and they can pick and eat them, to get high again. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

And when they die in the fights. The Kid continues. The scabs turn black and get big and if you eat them you get magic powers. You can become a superhero, he says, tapping his tattered comic.

Jesus, what a fucked up place. Drugs and drug culture have become so common here that they are now an ingredient in the kaleidoscopic imagination of children. Something as disturbed as eating meth scabs has now mutated into something bigger, more grandiose, mythological.

I look down at the book he is holding and see that it truly is an antique. The price tag in the corner advertises it for twenty cents. There is a picture of woman in a purple costume leaping off a building and a bunch of sinister looking men with guns.

Black Orchid, I say, reading the title.

The boy gives me a sudden look of veneration.

Yeah, that’s what they should be called. He whispers. Black Orchids.

I raise an eyebrow, confused.

The scabs, the black scabs that give you super powers; they should be called Black Orchids.

As we stare at each other, I perplexed, and he fervid, the Youngblood, my old cohort jogs up behind us.

Hey man, he says.

I turn, and he nods at the kid. His eyes are wild, and I’m guessing he had a long night at his Auntie’s house, helping her get rid of all that extra cocaine she had laying around.

Hey sorry guy, fucking took so long to get over here.

I stand up and brush the dust off my old blue jeans. I look back at the kid.

Adios amigo, I say.

Adios.., he says, staring into the distance. Adios amigo.

Shane and I turn and walk into the Swancor office, leaving him alone with the morning greyness and his visions of black orchids.

We walk up to the counter and the Youngblood vomits up words in rapid succession.

Hey man, yeah, we are supposed to be going up on to rig nine, my buddy Sizz, I mean Glen...Uhhhh... Thomas is the toolpush...And he like told me...

The girl behind the counter stares at Shane with leaden eyes letting him blather for a minute before interrupting with a bark.

What are your names?

Shane, yeah, Youngblood, Shane says, jumping nervously as he answers.

And you?

John, I say. John Doe.

Usually that elicits some kind of response, but it doesn’t even register with counter girl.

Take a seat, she orders; typing into her computer.

We back away and sit down. Across from us is a giant poster of a clown-happy rig worker wearing spotless fire-retardant coveralls and a giant hardhat.

Responsible development for a brighter future!

Beside that is a picture of two native girls, painting the face on a totem pole blue.

Helping communities to see the possibilities!

Swancor. Just one of the many multinational oil companies digging for black gold up here in the great white north. Initially, when Shane told me about this job, I thought we would be working in the oilsands. Squeezing foul-smelling petroleum products from the rocks with our bare hands underneath a canopy of fire and radiant stars. It turns out, however, his friend Sizz is on an old fashioned drilling rig and if we get hired that is where we’ll be going.

Either way, I won’t bemoan leaving this town. There is an eeriness that permeates everything here, the buildings, the air, this office. They all seem to be impregnated with the same cold menace, as if everything and everyone were tied together by a throbbing artery of fatalism.

Counter-girl puts down her phone and squeals.

You two! Motioning us over.

Yeah, there is an opening on rig nine, leasehand and one roughneck. Neither one of you guys have worked on a rig before?

We both shake our heads.

Okay, you long hair. She points to me. You’re roughnecking and you chatty Kathy. She eyes Shane. You’re leasehand.

The Youngblood is disappointed, roughnecks are a step above leasehands, and they make more money, but Shane is only five and a half feet tall and as skinny as the tweaker I saw outside. As first impressions go, he doesn’t make a good one.

You got all your tickets? Gear?

We nod. Shane’s buddy gave us the lowdown when we were back in Calgary.

Tickets: H2S, WHMIS, First Aid.

Gear: Fire retardant coveralls, Steel-toed rubber boots, Green Kings, Hardhat.

Okay next hitch starts Wednesday night, be here at eight o’clock, do not be late.

We are sent on our way as a group of young newfies come in and assail the woman with a stream of incomprehensible questions. Outside the sun is trying to burn through the miasma without success. It is late fall and unseasonably warm, especially for up here. The deciduous trees are all bare and look humiliated because they stripped too soon. Hopefully it will continue like this for the rest of the winter, usual temperatures can get below minus thirty, and we’ll be outside for all of it.

I see the comic book kid across the street walking around to the passenger side of a pastel red Toyota corolla. He disappears, I hear the door shut, and the driver looks my way. She is about to start driving, but freezes as our eyes meet. Unabashed recognition blankets her face, she knows me. And I know her. Not from here, not from this time, not from this life, from somewhere forgotten, somewhere buried. I can see her eyes glaze, even from across the street, and her lips start to tremble.

Shane says something but he is in the background, leagues away, somewhere in the forgotten peripheral. I see only her. The girl, with the brown hair, hazel eyes, freckles. Undoubtedly the little boy’s mother.

She is from the past, my past, the missing past.

Hey dude! Shane calls loudly from the horizon.

My mind is whirling through different scenarios, sifting through memories, yet nothing emerges. I can’t find her in the encyclopedia of retained experiences, she is from before, she is from the static.

I take a slow step off the pavement towards the car, and this wakes her from her stupor. She hits the gas and is away down the dusty road before I can come within calling distance. The Youngblood is behind me, questioning me.

What’s up dude?

Do you know that girl? I ask him, still dazed.

Uhhh, no guy, I don’t think so. I didn’t really see her. You alright? You look kind of fucked up.

Uh huh, I say. Uh huh.

Chapter 3

And that was when she took my Mother’s umbrella to the bowling alley! Margaret Archibald came down from her powder room and started crying and crying. ‘Don’t you piece together that lemonade tree in here!’ But she wouldn’t, ooohhh noooo, she wouldn’t dare, not in front of the Bishop!

The doddering woman beside me has been talking for hours now. Nonsensical words flow musically from her lips, through the air, into my ears and then back out, unused, unappreciated. I disregard them; let them slough off me like an unwanted uterine lining. I must, I am defenceless, unprepared to deal with conscious awareness. These shapes, these things, these people. How can one react to such tortuously tangled entities?

We are sitting at a large dining table, just the two of us. Marcus the Giant Blob fed me two hours ago and then left me here. Apparently I looked quite content and wanted to stay. Perhaps he thought the crazy woman with the oversized garden hat covered in plastic flowers, and I were engrossed in deep conversation. Honest mistake.

But really where else would I go? My days are spent in limbo, floating in a sea of oblivion. Sometimes I get close to the surface, like now, I can see silhouettes through the murk. Diffracted images, obscure shapes. Reminiscent of the ancient sea turtle, I rise just to the boundary of my subconscious and take a deep breath, and then I must retreat, this is not my place anymore. It is too harsh, too loud, too real.

Take for instance the boy on the floor. He is a misshapen thing, an insect-like piece of flesh, long thin limbs jutting crookedly from an oblong torso. His head is shaved and bobbles around violently as he moves, and when he does speak, which is sporadic, it is always an incredible shout of obscenities. Right now he is crouched in the doorway between the dining hall and the adjacent kitchenette. Blood from his fingers is smeared all over the lower hinges. He has the insatiable need and unbelievable ability to unscrew the bolts that hold the hinges in place with his fingernails. He has removed one fully and is working on his second.

This is the real world, the world of the senses.

Minutes pass by, maybe hours. The overcooked Grandmother beside me eventually ambles away, and I am left in relative silence. I sit, stare, breathe, witness. Then Marcus the Giant arrives with a stranger at his side. A woman, small in stature with long black hair, not unlike my own, worn loose around her shoulders. Black eyes, also not unlike my own, glisten beneath delicate silver glasses. She is wearing black pants and a black sweater that covers a blue, plaid button-up shirt. I can see flecks of moisture melting on the top of her head and a voice tells me it must be snowing outside.

John, Marcus labializes. We’re on a first name basis now.

This is Doctor Lau.

I blink in recognition. She comes closer, and I can smell a bouquet of musky flowers emanating from her neck. As she bends down to speak to me, my eyes become transfixed on a teardrop shaped scar in the centre of her chest, just to the left of her laminated identity card.

Hello, John, she says, articulating every syllable, as if she were a child counting money.

My name is Doctor Lau, but you can call me Christine. I’m going to be your new facilitator.

If I cared to wonder, I would wonder what she was going to help me facilitate. Or is it I she plans to facilitate? Either way none of this really matters, her, Marcus, the gangly insect being picked up from his bloody business in the doorway. This is a show, and I am part of the audience not a participant. To prove my point, Marcus slips his elephantine arms underneath me and picks me up.

We usually let them rest around this time for an hour before dinner, he says to Christine, who gives an all-knowing nod.

My world spins, my eyes roll like glazed doughnuts. I would never let a man do this to me in real life. I would smack his hands away from me. I would push back, I would break away, and if he tried it again as slippery-skinned Marcus the nurse, with his puffy red lips most assuredly would, I’d break his fucking nose! I’d knock him to the fucking floor and stomp on his fucking head. I would take these talons and rip out...

Cushhhhhhhhhhh...

No more. No more sound, no more light, no more thoughts. Back to the depths, where I am safe, safe from myself.

Marcus carries me to my room and lowers me down for nap time. I stare at the roof until sleep takes me and soon I am dreaming. It’s the same dream I always have. Thunderous hooves stampeding all around. The smell of turned dirt and horseshit. An old man grimacing. Small fingers digging into weathered flesh, a nightmare collage of bone and cartilage and blood. A tiny voice calling from the shadows.

Laufen! Laufen!

Awake.

I lie in my hyper-accessorized hospital bed and let the nightmare drain down into the starchy sheets and mechanical arms. Soon I am back at neutral, stable, floating. This is where Dr. Lau, or should I say Christine